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Yeah yeah i know your first response is to say buy CS war campaign. Well I did, and now it's 1800 miles north of where I live because I forgot it when I moved. So now, the info I need is the size and breakdown of the CS army. Unit sizes, platoon, brigade, all that stuff. As well I'm interested in the chain of command, as in which officer licks the others' boots. If anyone can help me out on that I'd appreciate it. I'm trying to write a story about some CS troops who wind up rifted to the phase world galaxy and I'd like to get all my facts straight so that if it gets to paper in a reasonable format I could try submitting it.

Anyway any help is welcome.

MorganKeyes wrote:Dustin's done the most work on this insofar as the CS. I gone much further beyond canon, based mostly on my own time working with Army combat arms. As a basis to work from:

Infantry Squad: 8-9 troops

Infantry Platoon: 3 squads + command element (HQ + hvy wpns team(s))
Armor Platoon: 4 AFVs

Infantry Company: 3 platoons + command element (maybe a weapons plt)
Armor Company: 3 platoons + command element

Infantry Battalion: 3 companies + mortar/AT platoon
Armor Battalion: 3 companies + mortar platoon

Now I am also more given to Breaking the Phalanx's combat groups (ie., Regimental Combat Teams). I'll provide those in a bit.

...and try to give them a few tweaks to make them fit something more CS like.

Thats a good book btw to anyone interested.

Look forward to seeing that Morgan

MrThoth wrote:

NoJack wrote:Yeah yeah i know your first response is to say buy CS war campaign. Well I did, and now it's 1800 miles north of where I live because I forgot it when I moved. So now, the info I need is the size and breakdown of the CS army. Unit sizes, platoon, brigade, all that stuff. As well I'm interested in the chain of command, as in which officer licks the others' boots. If anyone can help me out on that I'd appreciate it. I'm trying to write a story about some CS troops who wind up rifted to the phase world galaxy and I'd like to get all my facts straight so that if it gets to paper in a reasonable format I could try submitting it.

Anyway any help is welcome.

There was also a pretty decent breakdown of troop formations in Sourcebook 1. Can't recall the page number and I'm at work, but I remember it's there...

Actually it's a different breakdown now...

According to Mercenaries (and CWC, IIRC)...
A Squad is 6-10 men
A Platoon is 4 squads or roughly 40 men
A Company is 4 platoons or 160 men
A Battalion is 4 companies or 640 men
A Brigade is 3 battalions or 1920 men
A Division is 3 or more brigades, or at least 5760 men
A Corps is at least 2 Divisions, or 11,520 men
A Feild Army is 2 or more corps, or 23,040+ men (usually around 30-50k)

In the SoT, the CS had 4 HUGE Battlegroups composed of 10 feild armies, or about 225,000 troops each (plus Skelebots, and Mercenaries)

The Ranks are similar to the US Army... From lowest to highest...

Service Specialist (Mercenary)
Private (recruit)
Private
Private First Class
Corprol
Sergeant
Staff Sergeant
Sergeant First Class
Master Sergeant
Sergeant Major
Warrent Officer
Cheif Warrent Officer
Second Leiutenant
First Leiutenant
Captain
Major
Leiutenant Colonel
Colonel
Brigadier General
Major General
Leitenant General
General
General of the CS Army

Hystrix wrote:

MrThoth wrote:

NoJack wrote:Yeah yeah i know your first response is to say buy CS war campaign. Well I did, and now it's 1800 miles north of where I live because I forgot it when I moved. So now, the info I need is the size and breakdown of the CS army. Unit sizes, platoon, brigade, all that stuff. As well I'm interested in the chain of command, as in which officer licks the others' boots. If anyone can help me out on that I'd appreciate it. I'm trying to write a story about some CS troops who wind up rifted to the phase world galaxy and I'd like to get all my facts straight so that if it gets to paper in a reasonable format I could try submitting it.

Anyway any help is welcome.

There was also a pretty decent breakdown of troop formations in Sourcebook 1. Can't recall the page number and I'm at work, but I remember it's there...

Actually it's a different breakdown now...

According to Mercenaries (and CWC, IIRC)...
A Squad is 6-10 men
A Platoon is 4 squads or roughly 40 men
A Company is 4 platoons or 160 men
A Battalion is 4 companies or 640 men
A Brigade is 3 battalions or 1920 men
A Division is 3 or more brigades, or at least 5760 men
A Corps is at least 2 Divisions, or 11,520 men
A Feild Army is 2 or more corps, or 23,040+ men (usually around 30-50k)

In the SoT, the CS had 4 HUGE Battlegroups composed of 10 feild armies, or about 225,000 troops each (plus Skelebots, and Mercenaries)

The Ranks are similar to the US Army... From lowest to highest...

Service Specialist (Mercenary)
Private (recruit)
Private
Private First Class
Corprol
Sergeant
Staff Sergeant
Sergeant First Class
Master Sergeant
Sergeant Major
Warrent Officer
Cheif Warrent Officer
Second Leiutenant
First Leiutenant
Captain
Major
Leiutenant Colonel
Colonel
Brigadier General
Major General
Leitenant General
General
General of the CS Army

and your forgetting Feild Marshal Emporor Prosek

Noven's got some good stuff there. He just needs to hurry up and get more of his stuff posted

Not sure if my stuff on the CS organization is still there at the Think Tank (haven't looked in a while) but if anyone is interested I can share it if unable to find it at the Think Tank.

Oh and of course Morgan, whenever you get the chance...

Hey thanks guys, that makes a world of difference.

One other question, what are the carrying capacities of that überjet of the NGRs and the Death's head transports?

In my story that's my idea for what they are in when they get Rifted. I mean, a lot of CS troopers Getting Rifted into deep space is too big of a mess to clean up if they aren't in a container of some sort.

PLus I'd like to see them with their equipment,

The idea that sparked off the whole thing was thinking of a rather large group of CS troops docking with a station in the 3 Galaxies, and after one look coming out firing. Hellraisers, and skelebots, GB killers and the like. It's (luckily) developed since then, involving some thoughts on the part of the CS officers.

actually that is their first problem.

They are meant to be stranded in space until the locals pick them up, but I've accounted for that in the story. They actually wind up floating in the debris field of a battle that was just finishing, and get picked up by a Packmaster carrier that's lost almost all of it's fighters.

Luckily the first contact the CS officer has with them is through the German Flight crew (if I use the Jet) and is with a human officer of the CAF. I realise that CS troops are most likely to attack any aliens on sight, but as this is a well disciplined group I'm counting on the officer being able to keep them in hand until he decides to make his move.

That's actually the first dilemma of the story, to attack the unsuspecting aliens or save his soldiers?

as to the vacuum conditions, well the armor is space rated (Old style was and FQ is so I just assumed that the new style was as well)

and then the vehicles are really nothing more than a basket to keep them from scattering all over the place.

The CS guys know nothing of outerspace, freefall, or EVA. THey are more or less completely helpless. As a matter of fact some of them would be puking their guts out just from the lack of gravity.

Would anybody be interested in me posting what I've written so far? It's not much but any criticism I can get on it is better than the illiterated where I live.

I was thinking somewhere in the ballpark of 200-500 That's a lot I know, but they do need to have robots, APCs, PAs and still some infantry left over. Kinda like a merc group, small enough to be mobile and large enough to be effective. Plus you gotta have the non-combat guys there as well, The Techs to keep the hardware rolling, and the medics to keep the soldiers going, and some sort of logistics guys or there will be a lot of hungry CS troopers not knowing what they can eat.

I figured on a decent casualty rate in the transports. They were rifted into the edge of an explosion that decimated a fleet of 3 galaxy warships. The packmaster still had a few shuttles left so it was able to pick them up (they were throwing out a llot of radio noise at a time when the packmaster was vulnerable and not wanting to attract attention)

I thought of the guys blowing it in their masks, but figured there would be some way fo the armor to handle it to some extent. Sever trauma (like on a battlefield) has been known to cause vomiting. If the CS equipment is as idiot proof as it needs to be then I'm assuming that not everyonw ho ralphed in his faeplate has bought the farm. Some did tho. Good point.

I was hoping for a group large enough to have some of the RCSG guys there as well as some dogboys/ psychics. This might be too much, but a guy can dream right?

In the story they are en route to the Tolkeen front coming from FQ. The German jet was a way to introduce at the very least some German Borgs, if not a Deutsche GB. Once again, it might be tipping the power level, but it is also a few level heads that the CS officer can talk to.

The German aircrew are the ones who figures out that they were in space (the Jet is supposed to fly really high) They are also literate which in a high tech world (outside of the CS) is a must. The CO and a few of his aides are but not to the same extent. Just more of the problems facing them in their new setting.

I was reading over this thread and something kinda popped into my head. I know multiple people have talked about doing something like this, but I'm pretty sure doing it as a 1 man job will easily take a year, so I'm sending out this call to all my fellow brothers-in-arms, no matter what job you held, who'd be interesting in sending ideas in on a CS Field Guide? I know Morgan, myself, Noven, and quite a few others have military experience and the best part of these boards is that I've seen people from every branch post here. Also, this keeps down what one person needs to write, so we could compile these ideas into something more all encompassing.

Yeah, I know it sounds like a lot, but it definitely sounds like more than one person could do. Noven's Infantry netbook was great, but it can't tell you how the air side of the house would direct close air support. Just drop me a line if anyone's interested.

Interesting idea that. A Rifter type submission, website, something else?

Anyway I'd certainly be willing to throw in on something like that.

Dustin Fireblade wrote:Interesting idea that. A Rifter type submission, website, something else?

Anyway I'd certainly be willing to throw in on something like that.

it could be a 5 part Rifter submission, one part per service of the military. You'd have to start with the Army first obviously...then move on to their Air Force, their Navy, and then split the navy up once more with their Naval Infantry, and the Nautical Service Specialists (Coast Guard)?